short story: No Body, No Crime
Elissa stared into her trembling reflection, feeling the words drain another drop of her certainty. After all, it was well known that if you believed everybody around you to be insane, then you are the problem. She groaned and fell back onto the bed, letting the heavy silver-backed hand mirror fall onto the plush duvet. It was an heirloom, passed down the maternal line, and had an inscription of every woman’s initials, some professionally cursive, some scratched in with a needle or the point of a knife.
There was a timid knock on the door, “Ma’am, it’s time to dress.”
Elissa swallowed and shut her eyes, trying to keep out the terrible knowledge of what would happen next. The servant girl entered, gently drawing Elissa to stand, and began stripping her down.
“Look, Ma’am. You’re beautiful.”
Elissa tried to smile but it wouldn’t reach her eyes. She was swathed in layers of white tulle and netting, a thick silk ribbon the colour of cherry juice around her waist and throat. Tied up. Pearls hung from her ears, another heirloom, and adorned her wrist.
“What a perfect bride.” Her father said wistfully, standing in the doorway. It was the same line he said every time. The same line he’d said on her real wedding day when she was seventeen and too desperately in love to see the trap clawing at her ankle.
He walked her down the aisle of the village hall, everyone gasping at her beauty. She looked forwards defiantly, feeling that trap tearing into her skin. Father just gave her a sharp elbow, the proud smile never wavering from his face, and she looked down obediently, clenching her teeth at the demureness shouting through every bone in her body.
“We are gathered here today to wi’ness the union of these two peoples…”
The pastor’s voice droned on, reverent and thickly accented. He drew out his vowels and savoured the ‘s’ sounds, completing forfeiting ‘t’ whenever possible. She hated that voice. That accent. Her accent.
Strong, slim hands lifted her veil, and for the first time she was permitted to look up, up into a pair of cruel blue eyes. Beautiful eyes. Bright like the glimmer of light on steel.
Mallory – although of course that wasn’t his real name – leaned down and pressed his cruel beautiful lips to her own unyielding ones. That’s two defiance’s. They would not let this slide.
The picture-perfect couple faced their sly, adoring neighbours, faced the thunderous applause, the weeping. Elissa could almost believe it was her wedding day.
Mallory led her back down the aisle, out the door, down the street, turned left, then right, then down the lane, then into her home, right into the lounge.
The blow made her ears ring, but she gritted her teeth, knowing any cry of pain would just make it worse.
She followed him, mute and seething, into the dining room, where her father and step-mother stood, faces fixed like wax dolls. The next door neighbours, Uncle Erik and Auntie Pamela, stood on the opposite side of the table, with the same painted expression.
Mallory pulled a chair out as if he were a gentleman, and sat opposite her, head of the table. Conversation washed over her, pressing down like she was lying on the ocean floor, threatening to crush her skull. Her knuckles stuck out starkly as she clung to the special-occasion cutlery. That trap was pressing on her arteries.
Auntie Pamela glanced at her niece. “Lissa, doll, are you alrigh’?”
Standing up with a scream, Elissa hurled her dinner knife at Mallory’s head. It missed. All the practicing had gone to waste then.
The masks dropped. Mallory stood with a snarl, and grabbed his wife by the elbow, hauling her down to the basement. She screamed herself hoarse while her family looked on with disgust, ashamed of how she tainted their blood. How they all did; her, mummy, gran. It was hereditary, they said, in the maternal line. Mad. The lot of them. Have to be controlled by the fathers. Have to be managed.
Elissa screwed her eyes shut, trying to pull herself back up the stairs, but Mallory was so much stronger. Besides, she was weak. Not allowed out. In case she ran.
“Look.” Her husband held her in front of a full length mirror, shaking her by the shoulders. “Lissa look at yourself!”
Creased dress, broken-in shoes, a slight stain on the edge of her ribbon, a purple bruise on her cheekbone, steady mahogany brown eyes, long clean hair.
“Lissa, please.” Mallory’s voice broke, as if he really cared about her, as if he were really her husband.
“I am not mad.” She whispered. The first words she’d said all day. She stood on his foot and threw her head back, forcing him to let go of her with a snarl. Whirling, she flicked off her heeled slipper, and held it up.
His face twisted, coming apart at the seams. “You will stop this nonsense once and for all.”
It would have been better if he shouted, but just like her real husband, the real Mallory, he never did. His voice, Mallory’s voice, was low and deep. It didn’t promise violence. It promised death.
“You are not my husband!” Her voice was shrill. Unbelievable. She couldn’t go through it again, not another year, another hell, another wedding day, forced to remember that her sweetheart was gone.
Mallory-who-wasn’t-Mallory pulled at his hair, groaning, “Who am I then Liss?”
Everything began shaking. She needed OUT. But they watched too well. There was no escape, they’d learnt to well after mummy and the pond, gran and the light fixture.
With a snarl of impatience, Mallory grabbed her again, promising Erik they’d be ready for the photo, they were just on the way up.
She couldn’t stop shaking.
Mallory’s arm was a band of cold iron. She looked at him as they posed.
“Murderer.” she whispered.
~ This was inspired by no body, no crime by Taylor Swift (feat. HAIM). The story is a bit different but I loved the idea of small in the middle of nowhere towns having their own methods of justice, their own conspiracies.
